A soldier's mother in France

Looking back over my three months in France, most of the time spent in visiting American military camps, some experiences stand out above all others. One, a precious personal experience, gave me my first insight into the splendid idealism and individual worth of the enlisted men of our army. I had gone to France a newspaper correspondent, without a single plan, without even a hope of seeing my soldier son. I had no intention of using my privileged position to seek him out. I did not know where he was, nor did I ask.

The American soldier abroad is theoretically still in America. He gets his letters through an American branch post-office in Paris, and they are sent to him in care of his regiment and his company, with no more definite address than “American Expeditionary Force.” My son knew my Paris address, but he could not, even had he wished to do so, tell me his.

With a few thousand more impatient youngsters my boy had enlisted before the draft, fearing that he might draw a late number. He signed up on the day when I sailed for Russia, and he was in France nearly two months before I returned to the United States. Thus our separation had been a longer one than was usual in this war. So when he wrote me in February that he had been given a week’s leave and hoped to be sent to Aix-les-Bains, I hoped so too most fervently, because I had been ordered to Aix-les-Bains to write the story of the first vacation of our soldiers.

I arrived two days after the first contingent of men, the dried mud of the trenches caking their uniforms and their worn boots, had marched to music and cheers through the flag-draped streets of Aix. I drove directly from the station to the headquarters of the provost marshal, and asked if a certain private soldier was in town, and if so where. He was there, and a sympathetic young man in uniform of the military police searched the lists for the record of his hotel. It is part of the intelligent care taken of our soldiers overseas that even on their permissions, or leaves from duty, the highest authorities know exactly where they live and how. No mother need worry lest her son get lost in France. He can’t get lost.

In two minutes I had my son’s address and was on my way to the hotel. He was not there, but the black-eyed little patronne, also sympathetic, found me a room on his floor. It was near the luncheon hour and I sat down at the window nearest the street, eagerly scrutinizing every soldier who passed, especially those who turned in at the hotel gate. Finally a soldier came swinging down the street, and it seemed to me that he looked familiar. Yet I was not sure. Could nine months make such a difference in a boy of twenty? This one, with the absurd little tooth-brush mustache and the cap on the side of his head, was taller, broader, straighter than my son. He was more intensely alive. Yet he walked like my Julian.

I waited for him to come up-stairs, but he did not come. I decided that he had gone directly to the dining-room, so I went down-stairs and into the big room, every table of which was filled with uniformed men, eating, laughing and talking.

It was the boy. I was so overwhelmed at the sight of him that I could not take more than a step into the room. I could not speak. Something of my intense emotion must have reached him, for he looked up, saw me, and in one bound was beside me with his arms wide, just as when I used to visit him unexpectedly at school. “Mother, mother!” he cried. Instantly at the word the noisy talk and laughter stopped dead, and every man in the room sprang to his feet. It was not a tribute to me, but to their own mothers at home. Right there I adopted the American army.

I am proud to say that a small section of the American army, all of it in that hotel, adopted me. Some were too shy to come up and be introduced, but I had broad smiles whenever I met any of them, and always, when I entered the dining-room, the same chivalric greeting.

I talked with hundreds of soldiers during that week in Aix-les-Bains, and in the little town of Chambéry, two miles distant, also a vacation center for our men. It is not mere boasting to say that they are, man for man, the most amazingly fine-looking soldiers in the world. They average rather larger than the English, and broader and more muscular than either English or French.

“Regardez donc, les épaules!” Look at the shoulders, I have heard dozens of Frenchmen exclaim. And they might as well exclaim, look at their pink and healthy skins, their clear eyes and splendid teeth. A generation ago we were known as a nation of dyspeptics. No one in France or England will ever call us that again. Our soldiers are as nearly perfect physical specimens as any men alive.

They are remarkably intelligent. Their eyes and ears are wide open to learn all they can of the wonderful land of France, and especially of the historic past which lives in old châteaus, ruined castles and Roman remains all over France. Aix-les-Bains, as every one probably knows, is in Savoy, which was once an Italian state, but which voted itself French sometime in the eighteen-fifties. In Chambéry is an ancient château which was the seat of the former dukes of Savoy. It is a picturesque old pile, built in the thirteenth century and still habitable.

Those American soldiers overran the château, climbed the corkscrew stone staircase to the top of the tallest watch tower, swarming over the ivy-clad walls, exploring every corner of the place. They speculated on probable methods of warfare and defense in the thirteenth century, and quarreled cheerfully as to how long their regiment could have held the château against the assaults of the other fellows’ regiment. They had more fun with that château than any of its original owners ever had.

They climbed mountains around Aix, taking delight in all-day hikes above the early spring snow line. They seemed thrilled at the thought that they, fresh from Iowa, North Dakota, Georgia, Texas, were actually looking across the valleys and hills at Mont Blanc and the Alps. Bicycles could be rented for about fifteen cents an hour, and hundreds of men spent their time exploring the country around. In the late afternoons and evenings they gathered in the big magnificent casino, now under lease to the Y. M. C. A., and delightfully swapped experiences.

During the entire week I never once saw a drunken or a disorderly soldier. One day at luncheon one youth who had imbibed a little too freely of vin ordinaire, perfectly accessible to all, and very cheap, suddenly became inspired to sing. The only thing he could think of was the doxology, and he sang one whole line of it before he was pulled back into his seat and his vocal efforts extinguished in a roar of laughter. That was the sole and only approach to rough-house I witnessed in Aix.

The healthy enjoyment and the consistent good behavior of the Americans seemed to impress the French as miraculous. Half a dozen French officers on leave in the famous watering place spent hours in the Y. M. C. A. headquarters, and townspeople brought their families to see the Americans, hear them sing Over There, and Joan of Arc, and stag dance to the music of Lieutenant Europe’s famous regimental band. Europe, who used to play for idle New York to tango, has a band of colored soldiers who are going to be known all over the continent before the war ends. The men all sing as well as play, and their music is really remarkable. Whenever a colored soldier appeared on the street the French children followed him in a rapt procession. They followed all the Americans, but Europe’s men had them hypnotized.

In Aix I saw the beginning of what I believe is going to be a never-ending friendship and understanding between the American people and the French. You have heard, no doubt, about how the French double the prices of everything as soon as an American soldier enters a town. Some French shopkeepers have done this, of course. The American soldier seems to be rolling in wealth, and he rarely even counts his change. The temptation to overcharge a man who throws down a fifty franc note in payment for an apple, carelessly inquiring “Is that enough,” must be pretty strong. But let me tell you that avarice is not the ruling passion of the French, and their dealings with the American soldier are often marked with consideration most extraordinary.

Vacations do not come cheaply to the American soldier in France, at least the stay at Aix-les-Bains was not cheap. Every man who went there was supposed to have a minimum of one hundred and fifty francs, or twenty-seven dollars, in his possession. When he registered at the office of the provost marshal he drew a slip of paper with the name of a hotel on it. To that hotel he was obliged to go. The tariff varied from ninety-three to one hundred and twenty-eight francs for the week, and this sum, seventeen dollars and sixty-four cents to twenty-three dollars and four cents, had to be paid in advance.

A few of the soldiers failed to get this into their heads before coming, and there was considerable borrowing in the first few days. Lucky were they who had friends from whom to borrow. One tall shy youth from Georgia, I think it was Georgia, came to the Y. M. C. A. with a pathetic tale of tragedy based on the fact that he had arrived in Aix with only eighty francs in his pocket. He had probably never been twenty miles from his home village before he went to France with his regiment, and here he found himself shut out from his hotel in a strange European town, with thirteen dollars and sixty cents less than he needed to support existence.

The Y. M. C. A. secretary suggested that he go back and ask permission to stay as long as his money lasted, but the boy was too frightened and forlorn to make the venture. Besides, he spoke no French and could never explain himself to that terrible patronne. In France it is always the women who hold the cash-box and manage the business end of hotel keeping.

The Y. M. C. A. secretary put on his hat and went back with the drooping Georgian to plead with the patronne. She had not previously understood the case, and now was all kindness and sympathy.

“The poor infant!” she exclaimed. “So far away from home and only eighty francs. Wait, monsieur, until I consult my husband.”

Soon she came back smiling. “It is all right, monsieur,” she said. “The big infant may stay the week for eighty francs. We also have a son under the colors. May some one be a little kind to him when he needs it.”

This story, I believe, is more truly typical of the spirit of the French people toward our men than any tale of extortion, however true.